A gold and enamel box, for the Eastern market, Geneva or St Petersburg, circa 1820

shaped oval form, the lid, base and sides painted with vignettes on an opalescent sunset ground with flowers or a lake view, on pale green with gold taille d'épargne foliage, the interior of lid also with a magnificent bouquet of flowers on a pale green ground, rubbed St Petersburg marks including illegible retailer's signature, partially rubbed name in script, probably Keibel, assaymaster Alexander Yashinkov (1795-1826), later French import mark

For a very similar Eastern market box, the lid with a seaview signed by Jean-Louis Richter, marks of Otto Samuel Keibel, St Petersburg, 1801, see Alexander von Solodkoff, Russian Gold and Silver, Fribourg, 1981, pl. 198. It seems perhaps more probable that these boxes were made in Geneva, imported to Russia and marked by the retailer who sold them, than that they were actually made in Russia although a number of respected Geneva enamel painters, such as Adam and Soret, worked for a time in St Petersburg. Certainly the present box is certainly far better quality and heavier in weight than the average Geneva export box.